Religion Dispatches
…her spheres. The most popular Qur’an reciters, for example, are dominantly Egyptian. Let’s hope Egypt develops democratically; in that case, very quickly we’ll see Egypt’s religious culture birth new movements and tendencies which seek to marry their historical religious legitimacy and the energy of their recent revolution. Without a doubt, Egypt has played a key and perhaps unparalleled role in the last two centuries of Middle Eastern Islam, and…
Read More…the crowd, or donated by the tea-shop owner – its just another part of the Egypt I have always known. But the Egypt I have known would never have seen people feeling free to voice their criticisms of the president so strongly or openly – that type of attitude certainly existed prior to this uprising, but was limited to private meetings, or outside of Egypt. In that Square, while it is still the same country that we have always known, there was som…
Read More…2. The success or failure of the Iranian Revolution is not a commentary on Egypt. The argument that this is not an Islamic revolution because Egypt in 2011 is unlike Iran in 1979 or that the Muslim Brotherhood lacks a Khomeini-like figure does not actually tell us anything about the nature of this particular revolution. Less than a month ago the myth of Arab Authoritarianism was intact. For decades, scholars pondered the so called “puzzle” of “A…
Read More…mself with both the Coptic Christian Pope and the head of Al-Azhar Mosque, Egypt’s supreme Islamic authority. In the weeks and months since, the Egyptian regime has relied heavily on the Church and Al-Azhar, both of which have been staunch supporters. Shortly after the coup, various religious institutions announced their support for the military-backed government and for Morsi’s removal, sometimes defending the government against allegations that…
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…president, including George W. Bush. I expect they will stand by him in the 2024 election cycle, whether or not he receives a prison sentence as a result of the criminal indictments he currently faces. But whoever Joe Biden faces when the dust settles from the Republican primaries, Democrats will have to be ready to counter the Christian nationalist narrative of decline caused by the “godlessness” of “woke leftists” who have the audacity to believ…
Read More…de, we sounded a note of caution here at RD about the “dark side” of honor code enforcement. After all, the honor code had been created during the 1960s in an effort by ultra-conservative BYU President Ernest Wilkinson to root out liberals, and honor code enforcement (including anonymous referrals) had been used to bait and harrass feminist, liberal, and gay students, shut down campus free speech, and compromise the privacy of pastoral counseling…
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…d from the world. Aggressive national policy will accomplish nothing for Egypt and the many Egyptians whose jobs depend on the tourist sector. That’s worth keeping in mind when people ask if a new Egypt will be a pro-Hamas Egypt. 2. Why, How Many Tanks and Planes You Have Any post-Mubarak regime will have to incorporate not only the military’s interests, but reward the military (assuming the revolution succeeds, it’ll only succeed with military…
Read More…e David Brooks, have remarked, the question to be posed now is not whether Egypt is ready for democracy or not—that ship has sailed. The relevant question is: are Egyptians ready to uphold the rule of law regardless of the political consequences? The creation of just, ordered societies is in fact the primary objective of the Muslim political tradition—and Muslim scholars often took it upon themselves to promote this, sometimes even overriding rel…
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…elicals reportedly voted for Trump in 2016, the percentage dropped to 76 percent in 2020, though experts contend that White evangelical support for Trump is “remarkably stable and consistently strong.” AFPI believes that if they can get back to 81, or even part way, that could make the difference in 2024. But wherever Wallnau, AFPI, and their partners go this election season, and whatever the outcomes of elections at all levels in 2024, the strugg…
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…nservative movement’ DeMuth summarized the aims of national conservatism in 2024 as the promotion of “patriotic schooling,” an “end to civil violence and antisemitism,” and a “revival of faith, family and fertility,” while deriding “[anti-populist] elites in Brussels and Washington” along with “our atomised, feminized, self-obsessed culture where autonomy is the holy grail.” The throughline of the opening remarks of both DeMuth and his fellow NatC…
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